Police nab alleged cross border alcohol smuggler
Lebogang Mosikare | Friday January 22, 2021 16:43
This follows the arrest and charging of a local man, Koziba Nkosana, on Saturday after he was found with bottles of whiskeys that he dumped in the bush at Dumela Industrial Site.
Officers from Francistown Police station arrested Nkosana in possession of 17 (750 ml) bottles of Gold Blend Black Whiskey and 48 (750 ml) Gordon’s Dry Gin. The bottles of whiskeys and gin were found in the bush after Nkosana dumped them when the police approached him.
According to the police, Nkosana had escaped a police checkpoint at Bisoli after the police wanted to search the car that he was driving. After Nkosana escaped the police at Bisoli, the police communicated with their counterparts in Francistown and then devised a plan to arrest him. When the police asked Nkosana what he was doing in the bush at Dumela, he told them that he had gone to the bush in order to answer a call of nature.
However, when the police asked Nkosana to go and show them where he had gone to answer a call of nature, he failed to do so and they discovered that he had dumped the whiskey and gin in the bush. Nkosana then later paid P2, 000 admission of guilt fine after he failed to give the police a reasonable explanation as to where he got the liquor from, what he was going to use the liquor for and for defying the proclamation that was issued by Masisi in the Government Gazette suspending the sale of alcohol. Although it was not clear where Nkosana might have sourced the alcohol, police believe that the liquor was smuggled from Zimbabwe into Botswana. On Wednesday, Inspector Mengistu Chigala obtained an order from Chief Magistrate Mareledi Dipate directing the police to go and destroy the alcohol that Nkosana was found in possession of at the Francistown City Council (FCC) landfill. The suspicions by the police that the alcohol that Nkosana was found in possession of was smuggled into Botswana from Zimbabwe through an ungazetted point of entry may be not off the mark, sources claim.
This is so because Nkosana was arrested while driving from the direction of Ramokgwebana border (a border between Botswana and Zimbabwe) along the Ramokgwebana-Francistown road heading to Francistown. In Francistown, it is still common to see alcohol consumers drinking liquor that was manufactured in Zimbabwe despite the fact that the prices of alcohol have skyrocketed since the issuance of the proclamation. It is also common cause that during lockdowns that were imposed to control the spread of the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country last year, prices of alcohol ballooned in the underground market after government suspended the sale of liquor. Just like during the past year, prices of alcohol in the black market have exponentially increased not only in Francistown but the whole country. For example, the price of a 750 ml Black Label, which is normally sold for P20, now ranges between P35 and P50.
Last year, investigations by Mmegi established that some unscrupulous truck drivers from Botswana’s neighbors were responsible for fuelling the proliferation of the illegal sale of alcohol during the lockdowns while in transit to South Africa to deliver or buy essential goods. Because the truckers are still allowed to pass through Botswana even now, there is a high possibility that some of them could be making a killing by smuggling alcohol into Botswana. In other words, the move by SADC Heads of State to allow the movement of essential goods within the region is a double-edged sword.